MY POOR WALLETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.
DAY ONE (DISNEY SPRINGS):
Okay, so my usual plan with WDW is to get the WestJet red-eye from Edmonton to Toronto, then Toronto to Orlando on Sundays (the only direct flight to Orlando is I think on Tuesdays and pretty pricey), then to the hotel and then to Disney Springs. This means I get to skip the busy weekend in the parks and I like airports better at night- no line to check bags and none at security. It stinks having every shop closed, but whatever- Chili's is open! The only one left in Edmonton! Except for whatever reason it was so busy the two people working there had a lot of trouble managing all the tables, so my bill came SUPER late and I could barely pay in time- gates had been open for like ten minutes by the time I got to it! And then, even worse, the plane was JAM PACKED. On a flight that's done multiple times per day, for whatever reason the 12am flight to Toronto was absolutely stuffed to the gills with people, which was pretty shocking and annoying. Did EVERYONE have an early connecting flight?
I barely remember connecting at Pearson at all- it's a genuinely horrendous airport but I made it with a bit of time to spare (2:45:00- ALWAYS give yourself a ton of time at Pearson... this will be important in my final post, lol). But amazingly, NOBODY was going from Toronto to Florida! International travel is still a big pain, so there were plenty of empty rows- I even had a row all to myself! That's only ever happened ONCE before!
ORLANDO TO DISNEY:
* So thankfully they still have the Magical Express for now. I arrived at Orlando and this time didn't lollygag at the gift shops for Disney/Universal (last time, I did that and I was late picking up my back, so WestJet "Helpfully" loaded my bags onto a Disney coach and I was left with no luggage or change of shirt, and had to wore a long-sleeve button-up shirt in May weather)... and of course this time the carousel took forever to get started. But for whatever reason there was a MONSTER line for the DME- like it literally took 20-30 minutes just to get through it! I've never seen THAT before either. Yet another sign that the parks were going to be packed. And of course when I got up I told them I didn't have my DME tags (I booked this fairly quickly... and actually they never showed up in the mail at all anyhow). So she asked me my order code and I had to scramble like a doofus despite having had a half-hour to get ready for this moment- I think it'd just be my name that they needed! Took me half a minute to find it (while the CM didn't act impatient, which I'm sure took some doing, lol).
ANYWAYS, there was zero wait for the shuttle and I hit Art of Animation quickly. Took the standard wait for check-in since I had my Magic Band to pick up (I checked in the rest online at the airport), as AoA always has a bad line for concierges... and turns out my Magic Band wasn't there! The CM was confused, I thankfully had my order code at the ready (I KNEW something was going to go wrong, because my account said "there is no Magic Bands associated with this vacation" even though I knew I'd bought one), and my theory was correct- because I'd shifted my hotel dates around, they'd screwed up and the Band was only going to be there on the day I was INITIALLY supposed to have arrived. So I'd have to wait a day (two, as it turned out- the line was too long the morning of my second day so I went without, haha).
I legit love this hideous place.
DISNEY SPRINGS:
* So my 2014 Disney Springs trip was awful (I was there late and there was massive construction everywhere- I couldn't get a restaurant and was too inexperienced a traveler to get a reservation), but 2019's was awesome, and set the stage for future trips- arrive in the afternoon and stay all day.
I do like what they've done with the place. Covid seems to have not hammered it too bad (some CMs told me some shops died, but every place here was fine). Everything was mostly as I'd remembered it- almost a theme park in and of itself, with some fantastic theming in T-Rex, The Rainforest Cafe and the like. I just love those two- I've never eaten there, but they're brilliantly garish, excessively noisy, full of animatronics and wild stuff- pure Disney magic. They had the giant water balloon running, I still saw that basement bar restaurant dug way into the ground, etc. I had a lunch-ish reservation later, so I just got ice cream from the one place close to the entrance (Sprinkles!). I forget what I had.
My Paddelfish thing. I'm not normally a "take photos of my food" people.
I had booked a reservation at Paddlefish for 3:45pm ages ago (and couldn't find a single mealtime later, even after checking repeatedly!). Unfortunately, I'd found out weeks before that the dish I'd been thinking about weekly since 2019- the Crab Boil- was GONE. The restaurant manager/PR person had confirmed it when I'd asked via email. So I was "stuck" with the Alaskan King Crab for like some giant fee (I mean, I'd been looking forward to this for AGES, so I had to get SOMETHING). Interestingly, I was put at the exact same table I had been in 2019- is that the official "single person's table"? The crab was fine, though I find there's so much it and the butter inevitably get cold, haha. Are most people faster than me at busting these open? Or is this just a normal part of eating crab? I'm usually a fast enough eater that nothing ever gets cold on my plate!
The Stores: Looks like the one strip has a Marvel store (all Eternals stuff right now), a Star Wars store, etc. There's the Cuban-themed restaurant, Jock Lindsey's (which is super-well-themed- I kind of wish you could get in without a reservation just to check it out) which is where I've heard a lot of CMs hang out on days off, etc. That one bakery that's super-well-themed was there and has a line to get in. I think it's impossible to see ALL this stuff in one day; a lot of it must be for locals or longtime visitors.
The Lego Store interestingly enough blocks off everyone and there was a HUGE line to get in- I waited almost all night to see the line finally shrink enough to get in. It's... fine. I dunno. I've never been as crazy into Lego, but it's a nice big store. The Frozen 2 Anna & Elsa are still out front, which is good.
WOD and the Magic Kingdom's Emporium both had these MASSIVE Cinderella Castle displays up. Easily the highlight of both places.
The World of Disney store is the main event here (with the biggest nuisances of an entrance ever, now- they blocked off every single entrance but one, which required an almost 360-degree run around the building for me), and... it's fine. I guess. I REALLY wish I'd been more enamored of it, especially because all the Disney Stores in Canada closed a few months back. So I was expecting this big religious experience of finally being back in my beloved Disney Stores... except those Stores had gotten lamer and lamer post-Pandemic, with nothing really new coming in. And this WoD store had the same old stuff those Stores had, with walls of the same dolls (with the cardboard packaging so they looked extra-identical). There's some huge MK Castles on that some people were buying- those are neat. But mostly I saw the same kinds of things I'd seen elsewhere.
This was the most tempting thing I didn't get.
The Art of Disney store felt like it'd seen better days, with a few statues/figurines and some nice-looking framed posters- someone on a (Eris) server had shared some INCREDIBLE art and I didn't see any. Thankfully I showed someone the pictures and they pointed me in the right direction- there's this store hidden wayyyyy in the back corner that's the most amazing EVER and has all the best stuff. It's the part by Trend-D where they sell all of the fantastic art prints. I immediately bought 4 Frozen-themed posters and some of the little postcards (the cards weren't as good as last time- in 2019 I easily picked up 10-14 of those!). Unfortunately two of the Anna ones only had large framed pics instead of postcards or I'd have gotten those, too. But this was BY FAR the biggest single hit to my wallet in terms of merch this time around. But this one store is always worth the trip to the Springs by itself- it's dangerous for my bank account but it's the one thing that never really disappoints.
Since I'd eaten around 4pm and it was nearing 11, I needed SOMETHING else, and thankfully I finally tried out Earl of Sandwich! Which apparently has two lines, because I ordered food from an annoyed clerk who was in the "buy off the counter stuff" line and not the sandwich line. But at least I got a beef dip! I can see why people go ga-ga over this place, though. And then I got a giant milkshake from Ghirardeli, because Disney is the place where I eat ice cream twice in a day like an insane person who isn't 40 years old.